In Ottawa, there are some skeptical council members when it comes to ranked balloting. There are others on council who would support the change.

Mayor Jim Watson hasn’t been in favour of a ranked ballot system. Here’s a statement from his spokesman today to reiterate his position:

Mayor Watson is not supportive of a change to ranked balloting for Ottawa’s municipal elections. He believes residents seek out the candidate and platform which best suit them in an election, not a preferential view of who is most and least acceptable. However, he looks forward to having a debate on the issue at Council and appreciates the province giving the city the ability to make this decision. Mayor Watson is pleased to see the province looking into changing the rules guiding municipal elections and looks forward to seeing the proposals brought forward.

Ranked Choice Voting ensures that winning candidates are supported by a majority of constituents in their wards. Under our current system, a candidate can ‘win’ an election with only 25% support. In 2010, eight city councillors were elected to office, even though a majority of their constituents did not vote for them. With Ranked Choice Voting, candidates must have support from at least 50% of their constituents.

So, like anything else that goes through City Hall, if you have an opinion one way or another you should really contact your city councillor, in addition to participating in the province’s consultation. But council will have the ultimate say on whether the city should change its election system.

It turns out there wasn’t a vicious battle for those six seats. I said the wards were unpredictable. Well… Catherine McKenney more than doubled the votes of the next closest candidate in Somerset. Jody Mitic didn’t have a problem in Innes. Riley Brockington breezed through in River. Jean Cloutier came close to winning half the vote in Alta Vista. Michael Qaqish overwhelmingly beat his competition in Gloucester-South Nepean. It was a tad tighter in Osgoode, where George Darouze won by more than 470 votes.

Two wards, Kitchissippi and Rideau-Rockcliffe, saw their incumbents defeated. There was a close race happening in Bay where former councillor Alex Cullen managed to come within 474 votes of incumbent Mark Taylor. Otherwise, we didn’t see the tight race in Rideau-Vanier we were expecting, and Kanata North was firmly in the hands of incumbent Marianne Wilkinson.

For this, it’s to be determined. I think we’re going to be scrutinizing these new councillors to see if they’ve been whipped by Watson. Tough spot, because they could legitimately agree with the mayor’s policies. Council certainly hasn’t been rocked by the election. But plenty can happen over four years.

Thousands of elementary and secondary students across Ontario participated in a mock vote for the municipal elections, including students in Ottawa. It was organized by Student Vote, a program run by registered charity CIVIX. The point is to get students engaged in the democratic process.

Based on the Ottawa results, here’s the council students chose (bold means elected in the real vote):